Going to the Super Bowl is all about hard work, tenacity, and making opportunities out of the other team’s mistakes.

The San Francisco 49ers know all about hard work. It took them more than a quarter-century to make it to the 2020 Super Bowl.

I spent the days leading up to the championship contest asking friends and co-workers “Who are you rooting for?”

Not surprisingly, everyone in my circle of California friends is rooting for San Francisco.

For some, cheering for the 49ers brings back memories from the team’s heyday in the 1980s.

“I’d go to the games with my dad,” one friend shared with me. “Those were some of my most memorable times, going to Candlestick to watch the Niners.”

Another associate remembers coming to California to work in the eighties.

His career seemed directly tied to the success of the franchise. “That’s all anyone would talk about this time of year,” he told me over tea and coffee at one of our favorite coffee shops. “There was a real culture of winning in the Bay Area.”

There’s a lot of truth to that observation.

Between 1982 and 2003, Bay Area NFL teams appeared in seven Super Bowls.

The Raiders won one and lost one during that time. The Niners won five times.

The situation is about the same for Kansas City. Their last Super Bowl appearance before 2020 was in 1970.

I was living in western New York in the eighties and nineties. My team was the Buffalo Bills. But California has been my home for the past sixteen years.

I’ve watched our teams start strong.

I’ve endured the frustration as a season falls apart by the midpoint. And I’ve welcomed the resurgence of both Bay Area franchises as they have embarked on rebuilding campaigns.

Another associate told me a couple of years ago that it was hard to give up season tickets for Forty-Niner games when the team moved to Levi's Stadium. “The ticket prices jumped quite a bit,” he told me. “We had season tickets in the family for decades, but with the team not doing well then and the hike in prices, we felt as if we had no other choice.”

It’s been good for the Bay Area and Central California to watch some quality local NFL action this season.

Putting a winning season together is hard enough. Making it to the postseason is the reward for the teams that can pass muster week after week.

Making it to the Super Bowl is for the elites. For the fans, it’s something to cheer about.

It’s also something that connects to what truly was a special time in the past.